Living Fully Ordinary

I don’t have a bucket list and I never make New Year’s resolutions. While my intrepid husband conquers mountains, launches himself from the safe confines of an airplane, or explores the waters in which bull sharks thrive; I curl up contentedly on the sofa with the dog at my feet and a book in my hand–Jane Austen…Mary Higgins Clark…Jodi Picoult. Do you know how much adventure exists between the pages of Jane Eyre?

I’m a middle-class mom shuttling middle-school kids in an SUV with French fries wedged between the console and the passenger seat. One child sits in the far reaches of the vehicle and the other perches next me—constantly switching the channel on the radio. The boy yells in response to something the girl said, “Knock it off, drama queen! My day was worse than yours!” Angrily, my daughter cranks the volume and the thrum, thrum, thrum of…